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With a 60-year heritage, Gallivan, White, & Boyd, P.A. is one of the Southeast’s leading litigation and business law firms. GWB's products liability team has extensive experience in defending a wide variety of products liability claims, including mass tort and catastrophic loss claims, as well as conducting accident investigations and providing strategic advocacy services to our clients. Gallivan, White & Boyd, P.A. has offices in Greenville, S.C., Charleston, S.C., Columbia, S.C., and Charlotte, N.C.

Thinking about trying one of those electronic cigarettes to help you quit smoking? May we suggest going with the nicotine gum instead? It may taste terrible and be tough to chew, but at least it won’t blow up in your face, as one Florida litigant is now alleging. His electronic cigarette allegedly blew up in his face, leaving him in a hospital with severe burns, missing his front teeth, and missing a chunk of his tongue.

The man was in his home office when the device allegedly exploded, leaving behind burned carpet, furniture, pictures, and office equipment. That must have been quite the explosion. The culprit appears to be a faulty lithium rechargeable battery inside the device. Investigators do not know the brand of electronic cigarette or type of battery. The fire department chief, Joseph Parker, said that “the best analogy is like it was trying to hold a bottle rocket in your mouth when it went off.” Ouch! With a statement like that, we’d say its a pretty safe bet that Chief Parker will be called as a witness for the plaintiff if a lawsuit is filed when a lawsuit is filed.

We previously reported on some of the issues surrounding electronic cigarettes here and here. However, we certainly didn’t see this BOMBshell coming. It should be interesting to see what may have caused this explosion, since there appear to be no other similar incidents involving electronic cigarettes. Was this guy using the device improperly? How old was this electronic cigarette? Was the battery put in incorrectly? Did Al-Qaeda get their hands on it?